Cony High School in Augusta May Change How Block Scheduling is Done

If you went to high school before the late 1990s, you probably remember a time before block scheduling basically took over.

Back in the day, students would have six or seven periods per day.  In most cases, each of these was a completely different class/subject.  During each period, which lasted about 40-ish minutes, teachers would try to cram as much information about the subject into the minds of his or her students.  In many cases, the students forgot what they learned the second they walked back into the hallways.

Clearly, this was not all that effective.  So, what was the solution?

Block scheduling!

Basically, schools doubled-up periods in order to create blocks.  So, instead of being in class for 40-45, you were in class for close to an hour and a half.  This allowed the instructor to really take his or her time teaching a lesson.

There are several ways to do block scheduling.  For the better part of two decades, Cony High School has used for blocks per day.  Students would attend the same class in all four blocks.  However, most classes would any take half the year.  So, a student might have geometry in Black 3 for the first half of the year and physics in Block 3 for the second half of the year.  Of course, there are a few exceptions to this rule.

The other way of doing block scheduling is to have the students keep the same classes all year, but the days would alternate.  For example, in Houlton, we had Black Days and White Days.  One week, you'd have Black Days on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Tuesday and Thursday would be White Days.  The next week, the days would swap.

It looks like Cony High School may be looking into make a change to that method of block scheduling.  That being said, we are not 100% sure that is what the administrators are looking into.

Cony High School Block Scheduling Meeting

There will be an informative meeting about the potential change at 6 PM on Tuesday, February 3rd.  The meeting will take place at the Cony High School auditorium.

An email sent to parents of students says, in part:

The community forum will provide an overview of the proposed schedule, the rationale for the change, and time for questions and discussion.

 

Parents and guardians are also asked to fill out a survey regarding block scheduling and the potential change.  You can fill that out HERE